The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1887-02-04
Nuts For Farmers to Crack.
Communicated.

Communicated.
The sharkish nature of many farmers
becomes painfully apparent when ap-
preached for the purpose of buying some-
thing. You want to buy COW,
and the farmer has one for sale
which he would have sold the week
before for thirty dollars and felt per-
fectly at ease about it. But as we
have said, when you approach him, selfish
ness and greed get the better of him and he
demands ten or fifteen dollars more than
the price first settled on. We see the shark
again in the following: A poor working
man who has spent the spring time of his
life working for farmers in certain sect
ion, and feeling that he is growing old,
and having no home of his own (althongh
he has paid enough rent to these farmers
to have bought one) desires to buy an acre
of land expecting to pay for it by the aid
of his grown up children, and build a
small house thereon. He selects an acre at
the far side of the farm which has been
used by the farmer as a deposit for all
kinds of refuse such as stone and other
trash, and which is also covered with green
briers and bushes, because he thinks he can
buy it cheap; but imagine his surprise
when he approaches the farmer on the sub
ject, and finds that mo.e is demanded for
the one acre we have mentioned, than two
acres of his best land is worth.
Do farmers ever consider how much bet
ter off they would have been than are their
hired help, had it not been for their ancest'
ors? We verlnre the assertion without fear
of successful contradiction that not one in
ten earned what they now possess. 1t was
left to them by relations and by the aid of
the workingman they have been able to
maintain it.
Many farmers claim that wages are too
high as compared with prices of grain.
How was it some years ago when the Gust
ON was in vogue Of giving bushel of wheat
for days harvesting? Wheat was worth
$3.50 per bushel at that time, and farmers
wanted to pay $1.25 or $3.50 per day in
stead of bushel of wheat; and when wheat
gets down to $I.0O or less, they are ready
to give bushel for days harvesting.
Many farmers say they pay their hands all
they earn or all they are worth. Assuming
this to be true, we should like to ask this
question A farmer hires man for nine
months at $1,000 per month which is above
the average price, and assuming that the
farmer labor is worth as much Though it
seldom happens that he does half as much
work) and his wife and hired girl one half
the sum which the men earn. After SELL
ing the crops and paying all expenses Incl
dent the 'eto, and allowing the farmer
fair percentage for the capital invested,
there remains a considerable amount, and
as the farmer has paid his hired help all
they earned and he and his wife earned no
more than they, who does the money thus
acquired belong to? We know where
half of it belongs, but the farmer gets it all
the same.
The poor man wishes to buy an acre
which the farmer owns,
But the price seems awful high ior an acre
covered with stones.
A WoRKINaMAN.
Our correspondents logic, (and all
others who take view from the
same standpointO has one fatal de
fant hia Communications arc mainly,
based on the value of muscle. There
must be an organizing brain which
goes in advance and lays out work to
give muscle employment. What
share of the profits ought that or
ganizing brain to have? This is the
problem that defes all the efforts of
labor unions who figure from the
muscle point of view only.